Hi, appreciate anyone helping out, here's the deal: Arcrtic Cooling F12 PWM fans Scythe Kaze Master fan controller The F12's obviously have four pins, I think the pinout is as follows, but don't have a working DMM right now (due to a hilarious incident.. but I won't go into detail here): GND 12v RPM PWM control The Kaze has 3-pinners for the fans, I can't discern the pinout however, because of a crap translation in the instructions - indicating 4-pinned fans will not work. I have proven this, the result of leaving pin 4 out (by just plugging them straight together) is: Fans are either on max, or off (according to knob position) No RPM is displayed on the Kaze Because of this, I can only assume that the F12's do not use a standard pinout (as above), and that the RPM and PWM are switched the other way around. Thus, the Kaze is reading a RPM for a pulse-expecting PWM pin. So, if I just switch pins 3&4, all should be merry, right? Or does anyone have a differing view? I don't want to bust my new fans/controller :laugh:
I am running some akasa vipers from my Scythe Kaze Master. They are PWM and it has no problems running it. I am not sure if the F12s have a different pinout, but it would be strange if they did, surely it would make them incompatible with 99% of controllers and motherboards. Sorry if you already have checked, but do standard 3 pin fans work with the controller? Are you sure its not the controller at fault and not the fans being odd? Or even just a fan plugged into the motherboard to see if that can control it? Just to make sure both items are working correctly.
Unfortunately I haven't got any 3-pin fans to test with (only others are Molex). On further inspection, the Vregulation is working - ie. the fans' speed changes. Temperatures are also working, forgot to mention that before. I've checked all connections, and seeing as I'm only running two fans at the moment - tried the other slots, still no luck. I also tried out another Kaze - still doesn't work. That's either 2 fans with a dud RPM signal line, or 2 Scythe controllers not being able to display RPM, or the pinout is different. I'm reckoning there's something wrong with pinout lol. I presume pin 1, 2 (black, red) are GND, and 12v? So I should be safe (even if not correct) to switch pins 3, 4 yeah? Cheers.
Ok, I found a Molex fan with a 3pin (all NC bar the RPM on pin 3) and if I plug that in, obviously the Kaze has no control - but it does show RPM. So the Kaze is fine. It must either be that the F12's are dud and not showing RPM, or they're showing it on pin 4. I think it's more likely that it's on pin 4 - odds of having two fans with the same non-deliberate flaw are slim. But rather than go straight into switch pins, I'll test another to be sure. I refuse to believe the odds of three fans having that same problem Also, before I decide to whip out the strippers - are there 4-3 connectors available that switch pins 3, 4? Cheers, Fordy.
OK, by plugging one of the F12's into the CPU fan header, I got a CPU fan error. So I thought "Hmm, it shouldn't know the difference - it's reporting that it's detecting nothing on the RPM line." So I plugged the CPU fan back there, the F12 back onto the Kaze, but put its RPM only 3-pin plug into the chassis fan header on the mobo. So here's where it gets interesting. Mobo reads RPM fine from the 3-pin. So the F12 must have pin 3, 4 switched. Explains everything - including the CPU fan error, as it tried to read an RPM, where the fan expects PWM signals. Similarly for the Kaze. I'll just get on to switching them now. EDIT: Get this: That wasn't it either. I just figured it out, I needed to stick the 3-pin on the F12, into the 4-pin passthrough. It's deisgned so that it plugs into the mobo's CPU header, as well as CPU. It doesn't feed RPM in, allowing the CPU only to do that - thus the CPU fan error when I connected only the F12 to CPU_fan header. Unfortunately, this is completely unclear from the instructions - it doesn't specifically mention any of this anywhere - only it's "patented multi-PWM technology" - come one Arctic mate, it's a freaking passthrough!! Thus, they aren't expecting you to hook it up to a RPM showing fan controller, so you're left in the dark a tad! Glad I got it sorted though - I was just about to switch the wires - no idea what Id've done when that didn't work!
